Chapter 571.1: Recovery (1)
Chapter 571.1: Recovery (1)
Roel Ascart had a long dream that was nothing like anything he had ever experienced. It felt real yet illusory like a dream.
All kinds of scenes flashed across his eyes in that dream.
He saw many silhouettes emanating powerful auras anxiously pacing around him. They scrutinized his body as if they were determined to uncover his secrets. This continued for a long time before concluding with a warm and moist touch on his forehead.
Then, he found himself in a warm place. The silhouettes that previously surrounded him were nowhere to be seen. In their place were artifacts that emanated strong mana pulsations. He didn’t know what these artifacts were in his groggy state, but he did know that they were either exerting their effect on him or directly fused into his body.
As the artifacts were taken away one after another, he noticed that his consciousness was slowly becoming clearer. A coalescence of many conflicting energies guided by a gentle but firm stream of mana filled his body with a surge of warmth.
As warmth suffused his body, Roel fell asleep once again.
The first thing he saw when he regained consciousness once more was the gentle moonlight. He was in the midst of a ritual, with a pair of warm and comforting arms wrapped around him. The ritual looked to be a spell, but the scope transcended all spells he had ever seen.
Moments later, he felt something cold, sinister, and even terrifying slowly approach his heart. His soul shuddered intensely in response, but his injuries were so severe that he couldn’t wake up.
Vaguely, he felt the warm arms around him tightening. That person was trying to suppress the uncomfortable sensation, but even so, the waves of coldness still slowly robbed him of his consciousness. Before he knew it, he had already fallen into deep sleep.
When he finally opened his eyes once more, the scenery around him was already completely different.
…
It was in the middle of the night when Roel’s eyes slowly opened to a familiar room. After what seemed to be a long dream, he had finally awoken.
The moment he opened his eyes, a red gleam flashed across his golden eyes reminiscent of a shooting star, but he was much too groggy to pay it any heed. He remained in a daze for around a minute before life returned to his eyes.
He blankly blinked a couple of times.
While assessing his environment, he tried to recall what had happened before he fell asleep. He quickly noticed the warmth pressing against his back, as well as the occasional breaths tickling his neck.
This is…
Roel carefully turned around.
Under the gentle moonlight obscured by a layer of silk, a silver-haired woman was sleeping with Her arms wrapped around him.
The Mother Goddess was wearing a thin nightgown that exposed Her fair skin tone. She looked exhausted as if She had just been through a difficult fight, not showing any signs of waking despite Roel’s fidgeting, but She continued to hug him as if to protect him.
Due to Roel’s earlier movements, her nightgown opened up at the top to reveal a hint of Her voluptuous figure. Her unguarded expression showed a very different side from Her usual self, filling one with a feeling of wonderment. The gentle moonlight outlined Her silhouette, casting a dreamlike quality on this sight.
The Mother Goddess’ beauty was incomparable to anything else, but there were no disrespectful thoughts in Roel’s mind at all. Rather, he breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Her. He looked at his own body, which was dressed in the same frighteningly translucent nightgown as the Mother Goddess, and he decided to just lie back down and rest.
It was a scenario that would have usually culminated in something indecent, but putting aside the fact that Roel harbored no such thought, he also had a feeling that the Mother Goddess had Her own reason for doing this.
The two of them had slept together before for afternoon naps, but the Mother Goddess was usually properly dressed. There had to be a reason that the Mother Goddess had dressed Herself and him in such clothes.
For the time being, Roel decided to inspect his own body.
His condition right before passing out had been utterly dreadful.
His left arm had partially dissipated from utilizing spells beyond his means, whereas his right arm had been completely reduced to cinders from delivering the final blow to the Savior.
While the God’s Envoys had stepped in to protect him from the three divine lights cast by the Savior, their deaths still inflicted severe damage to his soul, which inadvertently affected his body as well. The sheer impact caused a whole lot of internal bleeding and fractures. That was also the reason his blood was nearly dried out by the end of the battle despite not receiving any direct blows from the Savior.
But then again, that was the exact reason he had been able to draw out the full potential of Being Toward Death, allowing him to raise his powers to a level comparable to the Savior. That was part of the reason he didn’t bother treating his wounds, and his triumph over the Savior showed that he had made the right choice.
Honestly speaking, it was truly a miracle that he had survived despite how broken his body had been. It would have definitely been much easier to build a new him than to treat his injuries. Yet, all of those traumas he sustained had disappeared as if it had been all a dream.
Looking at his smooth hands and his black hair, Roel could see why the Mother Goddess was worshiped as a supreme being. However, it didn’t take him long to notice that something was amiss with his body.
His mana had yet to recover, and he still felt an inexplicable feeling of exhaustion coming from within, indicating that his soul had yet to fully recover. Yet, his body felt oddly light and energetic. It was utterly irrational how his body could be in a good state when there were so many negative factors weighing it down.
To draw an analogy, he felt like a normal computer had suddenly started processing at the speed of a supercomputer despite having all kinds of bloatware and viruses installed on it.
He inspected his body, and he eventually concluded that his body had become more resilient. Little did he know that his body was more than just resilient.
All of his internal organs had been reinforced with the Philosopher’s Stone. His blood had been mixed with the Blood Clan’s Progenitor Blood. Implanted in his bones was the God’s Spine the Undead had collected after the death of the first generation of gods.
Even Tang Sanzang’s flesh couldn’t compare to Roel’s anymore! In no way exaggerating, a slice of Roel’s flesh could very well be worth a city.
That being said, no one in the world would barter such a trade. Even if Roel learned about this, he wouldn’t hurt his own body for it, knowing that the Mother Goddess must have gone to great lengths to heal him.
Having his kin around meant that his life didn’t just belong to him anymore.
Thus, although he noticed some peculiarities with his body, he decided to ignore them out of trust for the Mother Goddess. He breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that his body was in good condition.
With that, he finally turned his attention toward the thing he was extremely concerned about but dared not to check—the System.
【Progress of Bloodline Awakening: 99%】 【Evaluation: 189 (Apex)】
“…Huh?”
Even in Roel’s lethargic state, the moment he saw the updates on the System, his body quickly clenched up as his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. This was the first time he had seen such a high evaluation score on the System. He even thought that he was seeing things or that the System had malfunctioned for a moment!
An evaluation score of 189 was completely unbelievable to him!
No matter how difficult an ordeal he had overcome in his previous state, his evaluation score had only ranged from 110 to 120, which led him to think that the maximum score might be 150, similar to the exams he had in his previous life.
Yet, he actually broke the score ceiling this time around.
Furthermore, the description next to the evaluation score was not just ‘High’ but ‘Apex’, which suggested that the System had determined him to have surpassed his limits to achieve results beyond what was deemed possible.
This left him in a contemplative mood.
He had faced many dangers in this Witness State, but now that he thought about it, his accomplishment here far surpassed what he had achieved before. Even now, he could still vividly remember the deafening cheers of the victorious soldiers under the moonlight right before he passed out.
One could even say that he had changed the world!
Of course, the difficulty was at an unprecedented infernal mode too.
Putting aside the supreme beings, the Savior and the Mother Goddess, there were many other existences who could have squashed Roel, be it the evil gods, the demonic beasts, or the Race Sovereigns of mythological races.
Even the God’s Envoys were in prime condition too, making them far stronger than the Six Calamities in the present era. If not for that, Roel would have never been able to amass enough power to rival the Savior.
Roel, too, thought that it was a miracle that he was able to pull off what he did despite only being an Origin Level 2 transcendent.
His bloodline awakening had also progressed smoothly, with the progress currently stopped at 99%. It seemed that he would awaken to his Gold-tier Bloodline only when he returned to the real world.
There was still no countdown reflected on the System yet, but Roel’s thoughts about returning had changed after the events he had been through.
On the one hand, he had been in no condition to return to the current timeline. If the System had sent him back to the real world right after he defeated the Savior, he would have already been dead by now. He knew from past experience that the injuries he sustained in the Witness State wouldn’t magically disappear after he left the Witness State. Even if his body pulled through the worst, his sparse soul would have still doomed him to a slow death.
The Third Epoch simply wasn’t equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to treat him.
The System could have intentionally prolonged his time in the Witness State to protect him, but in any case, he had avoided the worst-case scenario.
On the other hand, Roel didn’t want to leave right away, either. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝗼𝗿𝐠
Feeling the warmth pressed against his back, he fell into a dilemma. He had never thought that he would grow this close to the Mother Goddess.
Her love for him was selfless. She had sided with him time and time again despite Her closest aides advising Her against it. She, too, knew that there was something wrong with him, but She was still reluctant to take his life. She might struggle to express Her concern at times, but She always went to all lengths to protect him.
Everything She had done for him was simply overwhelming.
It was inevitable that Roel, who had never experienced maternal love in this life, would become infatuated with Her.
Some might think that this was completely meaningless. The Witness State was as much of a reality as it was an illusion. It was like the moon reflected on the lake, to be seen from afar and never touched. Edavia had already warned him about it, but he couldn’t sever his feelings.
He didn’t want to give up on it even if it was just a transient illusion. He wanted to stay by the side of his loving mother even if it was just for a moment longer.
“…”
Roel’s heart grew heavy. He shook his head to evict those negative thoughts from his mind.
Shortly after he was done inspecting his body, he suddenly felt a wave of drowsiness arising from his body and soul’s fatigue. The reassuring warmth on his back also felt like a cradle that gently lulled him to sleep. Soon, he succumbed to his exhaustion and drifted off to dreamland.
…